Research foresees automated driving to avoid accidents

The Highly Automated Vehicles for Intelligent Transport (HAVEit) project, involving 17 universities, companies and institutions around Europe, is an attempt to prevent accidents, rather than mitigating their effects, which is the goal of most current driver-safety systems such as crumple zones and airbags.

The researchers state that automated driving systems that can implement different levels of control could reduce road accidents significantly, if drivers can be persuaded to accept them.

‘Many drivers dislike the idea of automation; they fear that they will no longer be in charge of the vehicle,’ said Reiner Hoeger of the Automotive Systems and Technology department of Continental Automotive, one of the members of the HAVEit project. ‘What we are proposing gives them a choice.’

In essence, the system monitors the road and the driver, and can introduce three different automated driving modes in appropriate situations.

HAVEit uses sensor and actuator technologies, including a camera monitoring the driver’s level of awareness, along with onboard computers running algorithms that can take control of certain aspects of driving.